May 30

“Your Brain On Art: How The Arts Transform Us”

“The blend of science and art is called neuroarts or neuro-aesthetics. The new book, ‘Your Brain On Art: How The Arts Transform Us,’ shows both the growth and importance of the field that connects the arts and our health. Jeffrey Brown of PBS visited the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore to see the progress for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.”

Susan Magsamen, Director, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics:
“The arts are becoming more incorporated into medicine, and of a growing understanding of how art can literally reshape or rewire our brains. It connects different circuits, connects different systems and different mechanisms within the brain.

Magsamen is co-author with Ivy Ross, vice president for design at Google, of the new book “Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.”  She gave Jeffrey Brown a day’s tour of ongoing examples at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she directs the International Arts and Mind Lab.

Mr. Brown was introduced to Dr. Alexander Pantelyat, a neurologist and himself a violinist who’s studying the potential for improving memory loss experienced by Alzheimer’s patients and others.

Dr. Pantelyat, Co-Founder and Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Music & Medicine:
“And we know that music impacts multiple networks in the brain simultaneously. Simply listening to a song can activate much of the brain at once.”

Susan Magsamen: “The fact that there is science that’s really beginning to show the neuroplasticity, the changes in neurotransmitters, the physiological structural changes in the brain, and also the impact on the body, I think we’re starting to be able to provide an evidence base. We are really evolutionarily wired for the arts. And I think that, as the science continues to grow, I think we will have more applications and more ways to see that show up in our daily lives.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-blend-of-science-and-art-is-improving-neurological-health

May 29

This Machine Makes You Hallucinate by JOAO MEDEIROS

Prolonged exposure to strobe lights has a psychedelic effect, which researchers are investigating as a way to heal the brain.

LAST SUMMER, IN various cities in the UK, more than 40,000 people visited the Dreamachine, a large space designed to induce hallucinatory experiences with white stroboscopic light and electronic music. Twenty to 30 people were allowed into the room and asked to lay down and close their eyes. After the 30-minute session, participants would typically describe the experience with adjectives like vivid, kaleidoscopic, powerful, and magic. 

One of the aims of the Dreamachine project is to shine a light on something that Anil Seth, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex and a collaborator on the project, which includes a team of artists, engineers, designers, and musicians, have investigated for more than a decade: the effect of stroboscopic lights on the brain. “It’s a phenomenon that’s still not understood,” he says. “The flickering light gives rise to really unexpected and powerful perceptual effects and conscious experiences that are kind of unrelated to what’s out there. It’s just white light yet people see colors and shapes.” This psychedelic effect might be key to understanding the neural basis of visual experience, because participants report having visual experiences even though their eyes are closed. “There’s something about experiencing the power of your own mind and brain to generate an experience that is really transformational,” Seth says.

Seth and his team have also started a project called the Perception Census, an online survey that aims to measure how different people perceive different dimensions like sound, time, color, and even expectations. “The idea is to understand the latent space,” he says. “The underlying organizational structure by which we all vary on the inside because it’s so hard to see. It seems to us that we see the world as it is, so it’s very hard to realize that other people might see it very differently.” Already, 20,000 people from more than 100 countries have taken part in the census, making it one of the largest experiments of its kind.

Editor’s Note:
You can have this kind of experience at Lumonics with your eyes open as you look at colorful light sculptures and experience visual music. Here is a link to Therapeutic Potential of Lumonics.

https://www.wired.com/story/dreamachine-anil-seth-strobe-light-therapy

May 28

Those who came up in the ‘move fast and break things’ era are learning to slow down and make things: The Maker Movement

 

A recent Washington Post article by Lisa Bonos, “They built the digital world. Now they just want to sew and make chairs,” focuses on new workshops that teach people how to work with their hands, and how gratifying the process is. Many attending are technology workers who sit in front of computer screens all day. Some companies set up classes to team-build.

Excerpts:
“Working slowly and deliberately can be difficult for people who are trained to focus on speed and efficiency.”

“The maker movement, where people use do-it-yourself techniques to construct things, has been flourishing in the Bay Area for about a decade. In the pandemic, some tech workers rekindled their Lego obsessions. Glass-blowing, welding, pottery-making and other art forms have also taken off.”


“It’s tremendously grounding, and it’s meditative…” 
“had this deep sense of accomplishment, and it was so incredibly satisfying…”
“I like learning how to be competent at something. At the end of it — look, I have this thing,”
“You’re tapping into a history of human craftsmanship that’s been around for the entire existence of our species.”
“As people spend less time commuting, they have more time for hobbies, and more of a need for connection.”
“Has a certain rejuvenating power for desk workers who spend most of their day staring at electronic devices.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/27/tech-workers-new-hobby-woodworking-sewing/


This kind of gratification is what Dorothy Tanner had in mind when she founded the Lumonics School of Light Art in 2018, shortly after she received the Denver Mayor’s award for Innovation in the Arts, and two years before she passed. A student makes a cube, electrifies it with an LED bulb, and then “artifies” it.

examples of completed cubes

“The Lumonics School of Light Art, the educational wing of light-art genius Dorothy Tanner’s Lumonics Studio”
Denver Westword

“Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.”
—Doris Lessing, novelist and Nobel Prize recipient

 

Kelley and Keely working on their cubes

 

Mia and her cube

 

Foster and his cube

1-session, 2-session , and 4-session classes are available

May 25

Thanks to Denver Westword for Featuring the Immersive Art-Jazz Experience on Memorial Weekend

Thanks to the Denver Westword Staff for including our Friday event, Immersive Jazz-Art Experience at Lumonics in Things to Do in Denver this Memorial Weekend.

Jazz at Lumonics
Friday, May 26, 7 p.m.
Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery, 800 East 73rd Avenue, #11
Lumonics gets jazzy in addition to immersive every third and fourth Friday of the month, with some of the city’s most interesting local musicians providing a soundtrack for the venue’s collection of light sculptures by the late Dorothy and Mel Tanner. This week brings the trio of bassist Matt Skellenger, pedal steel guitarist Glenn Taylor and Andy Skellenger on tabla, cajon and percussion to the light show, along with event curator and host Janine Santana, who might surprise the audience with films and more. Admission is $20 in advance at Eventbrite, or $25 at the door.